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Recap of vampires to this point, with an emphasis on Vampire!Dean and MoC!Dean, needless recap of the LoL with an emphasis on their toys, a brief reference to the Colt, and last week’s Mary confession.

Cut to Now and Mary still confessing. Dean is furious. Mary claims what the LoL “are doing, it’s a better way.”

Sam looks betrayed and asks her how long she kept it from them. Mary admits that the crappy episode the other week was them running an errand for the LoL. The Brothers point out there were casualties and when Mary admits she feels bad, Dean says, “Good.”

Cut to Mary and Retch arriving at some random warehouse with security, at night, in the snow. Retch is talking about awesome and easy their new toy was. And that right there is the LoL’s Achilles Heel–if it’s not easy, they’re dead.

Ugh, another Super-Sekrit Bunker Base. So not interested. So boring.

Back to the Mary confession conversation. Dean calls her out on being absent almost all of his life and all of Sam’s. Juxtaposed with Mary checking her texts begging Dean to talk to her and Dean giving back radio silence, Dean kicks her out of the Bunker. Sam backs him up (yay, Sam).

I am so very, very ready for the LoL to get burned to the ground, never to be seen or mentioned again.

Retch thinks they’ve got the best Winchester in Mary. Mick disagrees, saying that his sons are the de facto rulers of Hunter America and Retch doesn’t get to take the call.

In the Bunker, Sam is having second thoughts and Dean is desperately seeking a new hunt. Dean gets mad when Sam suggests they talk to her, even though Dean’s the one who has been in touch with her.

Dean calls Sam out on his “peacemaker shtick. You’re always playing the middle, man. For once, pick a side.”

After Dean leaves, Sam checks his texts and sees Mary asking him to contact her, urgently. Sam shows up at the Super-Sekrit LoL base. Guess he picked a side.

Mary still insists the LoL are a good choice and goes for Sam’s soft spot that he wants a normal life.

As Retch confronts Dean at the Bunker with a peace offering of whiskey, Sam gets invited to a briefing at the LoL Super-Sekrit Base where they brag about blatantly violating American sovereignty and slaughtering Americans (albeit, vampire Americans) all over Michigan. Meanwhile, a vampire dude is talking to one of the survivors and tells her he has a plan.

The Alpha Vamp shows up. Am I terrible for rooting for him this week?

At the Bunker, Retch is trying to feel Dean out. Dean says simply that Retch is trying to “recruit” him. Retch comes up with the usual lie that she went rogue. Dean is not impressed. Retch steps entirely wrong-footed in his arrogance all over trying to turn Dean and compares himself to Dean as another killer. Dean continues not to be impressed.

Dean asks him about the “line on vamps” Retch claims to have.

Back at the base, we have a stereotypically klutzy computer nerd (who is apparently a low-level Hunter) geeking out over Sam. Somehow, nobody ever seems to geek out over Dean this season. You know, the Firewall?

Mitch admits that the LoL are having trouble attracting good Hunters. Might be because those Hunters have you blokes accurately pegged as a bunch of amateurs from across the Pond, Mick.

Meanwhile, Dean and Retch are hunting vampires the low-tech way, but find nothing and no one–except the survivor we saw before. Retch starts to beat on her, while Dean watches, increasingly not thrilled, and Dean finally stops him. He talks to the girl. He says he won’t let her go, but he will “make it quick.”

Oh, and the Super-Sekrit Base is about to get taken down, as the girl tells Dean.

The vampire method of killing their way in is not especially scientific, but it sure is working. Sam and Mary immediately take charge, with Mary telling everyone over the intercom to “fall back” and not engage. Then she and Sam go out and grab a vamp to bring back in and interrogate. He tells them Alpha Vamp came back. One of the redshirts, a South Asian girl, claims the Alpha has been in Morocco for a decade, but Sam corrects her, saying he’s been in the U.S. for at least the past five years (as we know from seasons six and seven). Mary asks if anyone in the room has killed anything and only the nerdy computer guy has besides Sam and Mary. Mary points out the base is not well-defended and Mick admits they don’t have any contingency plans. Mary insists Mick bring out the Colt, which shocks the hell out of Sam. Mary admits she stole it from Ramiel, but Mick says they don’t have any bullets.

One of the redshirts gets it, from the Alpha, while Mick is trying to do the spell to make the bullets. The South Asian girl attacks him and also gets killed. As she dies, Mick slams the briefcase shut on the Colt and grabs the bullets. The Alpha drops the girl and stares after Mick.

So, it turns out the nerdy guy is working with the Alpha and he knocked out Mary. His job is to keep things quiet for the Alpha.

The Alpha calmly informs Mick that he didn’t interfere in England because it was…”well…England.” (love the contemptuous intonation of that) However, he is in charge of America. He intends to have Mick call up London and tell them to back off, while getting eaten onscreen.

Sam shows up and grabs the Colt. He proposes to make a deal with the Alpha–he can have Mick and he will back off, while Sam and Mary escape, and the uneasy truce between the humans and the vamps will continue.

Mick attacks Sam, but it turns out he’s giving Sam a bullet. The Alpha calls Sam’s bluff, then realizes what happened, right before Sam shoots and kills him.

Meh. Getting quite tired of Sam getting all these improbable and rather boring kills.

Mary walks in Mick surveying his dead. She’s been out cleaning up, saying most of the vamps fled after Sam killed the Alpha.

Retch snarks at Mick about being a loser. He comes by with the rogue Hunter and the Winchesters are fine with the guy being taken off to be tortured to death.

At the Impala, Dean says he came as fast as he could. Sam wonders why and then realizes when Dean looks at Mary. Dean forgives Mary, saying he understands they’re all adults now and she’s going to do some things he really doesn’t like, sometimes. Mary looks happy.

Sam comes to Mitch and says he’s in, because apparently, it’s his turn to get slapped with the Plot Stupidity Salmon. When Mitch asks about Dean (who is over with Mary, who I think is fairly done with the LoL at this point), Sam says to give him some time, he’ll talk Dean around.

Oh, Sam. And here you’d come so far, only to fall back into the Idiot Pool.

Still no promo because ugh, Riverdale.

Found the promo here. Looks like Dabb will be ruining Hell Hounds next week.

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6 thoughts on “The Official The Raid (12.14) Recap Discussion Thread”

Well now, that one was interesting. The BMOL plan of total extirmination made me glad that Benny is back in Purgatory. I cannot imagine Dean getting behind such a program with his ethic of waiting until a monster kills before killing them.

Speaking of Dean, he is implacable in his anger. While not toxic the way Sam is when he is angry, nobody will ever make him set this aside unless he so chooses. I agree with Evave that the conversation at the end was less of an apology than a reconciliation in light of the risks they face.

What this episode did was showcase the differences in their personalities. I am not surprised that Sam decided to throw in his lot with the BMOL. He has always been a “company man” so to speak, seeking external validation for his choices. And the BMOL would give him that. Apparently Mary is like that too. But if she thinks giving Dean a normal life will make him happy, she has not taken the time to get to know him.

As for the BMOL, apparently fancy toys take away the ability to adapt under fire. I guess pride goeth before a fall. And I was sorry to see the Alpha vampire go.

I just thought of something: the BMOL are treating ‘monster removal’ like a Rube Goldberg device. Yeah, yeah, get the intelligence and find out about ‘other’ nests. Sure. BUT they sure did not know what they were doing once the vamps got into the complex. They were literally useless without their fancy schmancy ‘stuff.’

I watched the whole thing now; I did not get Dean ‘apologizing’ to Mary; what I saw was Dean was faced with the possibility of finding his mother dead and he wanted to work thru their differences in some way (he said he ‘still’ disagreed about working with the ‘ass clowns’ but he would not cut off communication).

I thought that was reasonable and did not get an abject apology out of it.

I can NOT with Sam however; he looked so pissed about the Colt, really pissed.

The idea of LadyIStillDon’tCare and Mr Ketch is absolutely ‘ revolting. I ‘hope’ he is not the father of her sprog. Because, YUCK and DOUBLE YUCK.